The tech giant plans a July 26 announcement with more details on plans for its 1-gigabit fiber network in Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo. Google declined comment until then.

But Kansas City Mayor Sly James and others said Google’s initial offering will serve businesses that need something more akin to a residential connection.

“Joe’s Pizza, the restaurants on the corner, the marketing office, the law firm, the whoever — they will have the same access that residences have, and they’ll be able to make use out of it,” James said. “The problem is that if people were thinking this was somehow going to revolutionize Fortune 500’s IT departments, I don’t think that’s the goal, at least not at this stage.”

He said it is not the city’s place to advocate on behalf of large companies looking to hook into the new network.

“If there’s a business out there that thinks they can benefit by something Google is doing, then they can go straight to Google and see if they can work that out between them,” James said.

Such could be the case for two outside technology businesses making a move into the Kansas City market, Turnkey Internet Inc. and LightEdge Solutions Inc. The companies cited interest in the proximity to Google’s network and to Kansas City business customers connected to the network to support data storage functions.

“Why wouldn’t they want it to be rolled out to businesses when they have all that bandwidth?” he said.

James said Google’s initial press and goal will be to connect as many individuals as possible to the network, which long has been touted as a potential boon to economic development and a key attraction for technology startups.

Mike Burke, co-chairman of the Mayors’ Bistate Innovation Team, said Google is expected to provide a home service to many businesses that it happens to pass with the network.

“The question is, are they going to wire 17th and Main, or are they going to wire One Kansas City Place?” Burke said. “I don’t think so.”

Large business tenants at One Kansas City Place, a high-rise office building at 1200 Main St., include Bryan Cave LLP, Bank of America and Kansas City Power & Light Co.

Kansas City advertising firm Barkley is at 17th and Main streets in the Crossroads Arts District, a trendy hub for young technology companies.

Burke said Google’s effort probably will boost at-home businesses as residential Internet capabilities increase but added: “They (Google) know very much that we’d like to see business products in Kansas City. Many of our major companies already have a gigabit or better speed service to their businesses, but it’s the small and startup businesses we’d like to make sure have access.”

Gary Fish, the CEO of FishNet Security Inc. who moved his cyber-security company headquarters and 220 local employees from Kansas City to Overland Park this year, said he didn’t plan to sign up for a Google enterprise service if he’d stayed in Kansas City. But he had thought it would be an option.

“Absolutely. When it rolled out, the expectation was businesses were going to be able to connect to this high-speed fiber network,” Fish said. “Only connecting to a few small businesses isn’t going to be a great test.”

The residential-type service raises questions about Google’s intentions, he said.

The company has applied for, and accepted, video service franchise agreements in both states. The Google Fiber name appeared on images of cable- and video-related devices in documents submitted to the Federal Communications Commission last month, indicating a potential Internet-based TV offering is in the works.

“From the outside, it appears maybe it’s leaning now more toward a consumer home connectivity, maybe a Google TV kind of a play versus a business tool,” Fish said. “And maybe they should start to clarify that further as they move along.”

If Google’s job postings are any indication, it could be interested in pursuing enterprise products in the future.

In December, the Google Fiber team sought a product manager for small and medium business offerings. More recently, it posted a listing for a product manager for business solutions, seeking someone with experience in managing sales teams targeting the business/enterprise market.

On July 4, the company posted a position for a product manager of the Google Fiber platform. The ad cited experience in developing enterprise-class equipment as a prerequisite.

Whether Google eventually offers enterprise Internet service in Kansas City is the Internet giant’s prerogative, said Peter deSilva, chairman and CEO of UMB Bank. DeSilva is spearheading the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce Big 5’s attempt to make Kansas City America’s “most entrepreneurial city.”

“The fact that they are not doing large businesses in the short term does not disturb me at all,” deSilva said. “If they do, great. If they don’t, we still have the world’s best platform for innovation here in Kansas City. If people had that expectation, they drew their own conclusions and set their own expectations for what Google was going to be all about because they never said this was going to be a business application.”